Episode 107
Traci Potterf:
Unlocking the Hidden Connection Between Anxiety and Autoimmunity with Dr. Traci Potterf
Dr. Traci Potterf delves into the intricate relationship between anxiety and autoimmunity, drawing from her expertise as a medical anthropologist and functional health specialist. Exploring the intersections of lifestyle, evolutionary biology, and mindset, this episode reveals how traditional practices and modern science converge in our health journeys. Hear personal stories and gain insights into the quest for genuine wellness and healing. Join us for an enlightening exploration.
First Aired on: Oct 2, 2023
Episode 107
Traci Potterf:
Unlocking the Hidden Connection Between Anxiety and Autoimmunity with Dr. Traci Potterf
Dr. Traci Potterf delves into the intricate relationship between anxiety and autoimmunity, drawing from her expertise as a medical anthropologist and functional health specialist. Exploring the intersections of lifestyle, evolutionary biology, and mindset, this episode reveals how traditional practices and modern science converge in our health journeys. Hear personal stories and gain insights into the quest for genuine wellness and healing. Join us for an enlightening exploration.
First Aired on: Oct 2, 2023
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
1. Introduction of Dr. Traci Potter
- Medical anthropologist background and the foundation of holistic healing.
- Challenging the notion of anxiety being purely a genetic chemical imbalance.
- Viewing medication as a bridge, not a permanent solution.
2. Dr. Traci's Personal Journey
- Growing up with a psychiatrist father and gaining insights into psychiatry.
- Confronting her own stigmas about mental health following a panic attack.
- Understanding the importance of aligning with our evolutionary biology.
- The health and longevity benefits of traditional cultures meeting basic human needs.
3. Modern Challenges and Solutions
- Exploring the high prevalence of disease and mental health issues in industrialized nations.
- The call for a cultural shift towards nurturing and nature connectivity.
- How understanding anxiety and autoimmunity can uncover root solutions.
- The ripple effect of cultural change on biology.
4. Reconnecting with Nature
- Addressing the rampant anxiety and chronic stress in society.
- The role of the vagus nerve in holistic health.
- Embracing the interconnectedness of all living things for healing and growth.
5. Nervous System and Immune System Interplay
- Impact of stress and anxiety on immune regulation.
- Highlighting the vagus nerve and its significance in gut-brain communication.
- Understanding the influence of the microbiome on overall health.
- Comparing autoimmunity to immunological PTSD.
6. Stress, Inflammation, and Autoimmunity
- Chronic stress leading to inflammation and metabolic disruptions.
- Avoiding harmful foods and aligning with natural circadian rhythms.
- Recognizing and addressing often overlooked stressors.
- The crucial link between the gut, immune system, and brain.
7. Neuroinflammation and Its Impacts
- How an overactive immune system can mistakenly target body tissues.
- The importance of gut health and nervous system balance in treating autoimmunity.
- Recognizing and addressing mental and mood indicators of autoimmune distress.
8. Addressing Physical and Emotional Needs
- Challenging societal norms around suppressing emotions.
- Embracing vulnerability and redefining strength.
- Three-pillar approach to healing anxiety and autoimmunity.
9. Two Toolboxes for Health
- Addressing hidden medical issues and prioritizing lifestyle factors.
- Embracing "healthy hedonism" for optimal well-being.
- Understanding the importance of daily habits and self-care routines.
10. Self-care and Finding Balance
- Understanding the dangers of constantly prioritizing others.
- The power of neuroplasticity and brain rewiring.
- Supporting evidence from both ancient practices and modern science.
11. The Physiology of Crying
- Encouraging the natural release of emotions.
- The potential benefits of breathwork and embodied practices.
- Discovering internal bliss and unlocking inner genius.
12. The Healing Power of Gratitude
- Shifting from a negativity bias to a gratitude-filled outlook.
- Finding pleasure in healthy ways and expanding our "pleasure palette."
13. Making Choices for the Future Self
- Being grateful to past decisions benefiting the present.
- Introducing the concept of cognitive reframing for change.
- One actionable step: Morning meditation focusing on body and breath.
14. Taking Time for Personal Growth
- The need for daily meditation and breathing practices.
- Finding the right guidance that resonates personally.
- Healing both anxiety and autoimmune conditions simultaneously.
Other Resources:
Connect with Traci Potterf
Episode Transcript
Julie Michelson: [Page//00:00:00] Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Dr. Traci Potter, who is a functional health anxiety detective and the founder of innergeniushealth.com.
As a practitioner, speaker, and writer. Dr. Traci helps growth minded professionals overwhelmed by anxiety to find and fix the hidden causes with natural [Page//00:01:00] solutions so they can have a limitless life at peace in their own skin.
In today's conversation, we're talking about the connection between anxiety and autoimmunity. Traci's experience as a medical anthropologist has inspired her approach to holistic healing and reinforces that our connection to nature is essential for wellness.
Dr. Traci, welcome to the podcast.
Traci Potterf: Hey, Julie.
Julie Michelson: I'm so excited to dig in and connect the dots between anxiety and autoimmunity. Um, so thank you for joining us and, and taking us on this journey. And I would love to start with a bit of your story because you have such an interesting background. Um, and I don't, I don't know that I've ever met anybody else who has a medical anthropology background.[Page//00:02:00]
Um, and I know that that has shaped your approach. So so share with us a little bit of that journey.
Traci Potterf: Yeah, I wouldn't be the practitioner I am without starting out first as a medical anthropologist, also without starting out as the daughter of a psychiatrist. So that was kind of interesting how it all led me to functional medicine. Um, so I, yeah, I started out professionally as a medical anthropologist, and one of the things I was fascinated with, well, was indigenous cultures and how they were being impacted by industrialized culture.
And then I think a lot of us have an intuitive sense that guess what, when they started living like we do, they started getting the same. Diseases, not only what we think of as physical illnesses, but what we call mental illnesses. So I realized that what I've been told my whole life, having a father that was a psychiatrist was not correct.
And what he had been taught and what everyone been taught and what people are [Page//00:03:00] still teaching their, you know, a lot of psychiatrists and therapists and like so many people still believe this, that anxiety is a genetic chemical imbalance. which implies that there's something wrong with you genetically, you're defective, you're broken, and you just have to be on meds to manage your illness or manage your symptoms the rest of your life.
And then maybe you'll go to talk therapy. Now, maybe if you're super hip, you know about somatic therapy, which I'm a huge fan of. I love somatic therapy and all the trauma informed therapies. And those are amazing, but hopefully in our conversation will illuminate. There's so much more to it than that. And so that needs to be one of our tools.
That can't be all of our tools. And we'll also hopefully talk about medication. I never want to judge or demonize anyone who's using medication, especially if you're tolerating it, you're not having side effects, it's working for you, or it's sort of working for you for now. But I'm hoping by the end of this conversation, you'll see the medications as a stopgap.
It's like a [Page//00:04:00] cast and crutches or a band aid to get you Over the hump, just so you can feel well enough to do what it takes to heal yourself. And, and I grew up with a father's a psychiatrist. I love my father so much. He, his patients really appreciated his ability to help them, but his hands were tied in so many ways by medical politics and And a lot of just what he couldn't see himself because he had been trained to think a certain way.
And, you know, I grew up working in his office, like I was a kid and I was like making copies and my dad's psychiatric practice. He grew up on a farm. So he wanted everyone to like help out on the farm. So we went to the office. I did not like it by the way. And then, you know, I would be filing and stapling it because back then everything was paper.
And then as I got older, I got more grownup jobs, you know, like calling the pharmacies and, you know, like all kinds of stuff. I went to lunches with pharmaceutical representatives. They brought fajitas and Chinese food. And, you know, so my dad took me with him to see his patients. So he did, I did rounds with him.
I was like an emotional support kid. So [Page//00:05:00] from the time I was little to the time I was a grown adult until my father retired and then passed soon after. I went with my dad to see his patients. So I got, I grew up behind the scenes of psychiatry. So when I had my first panic attack at 19, before I had really had all these realizations as an anthropologist, I was in the old school way of thinking.
And I thought, Oh my God, I I'm genetically defective too. I'm like those people. And I realized I had stigmatized unconsciously my brain, people with mental health issues. I saw them as other than me. And it was a lot of humble pie. When it happened to me and I realized any one of us can be one of them.
And yeah,
Julie Michelson: Yeah, so so powerful. Um. And so we'll, we'll dig in a little, a little further. I want to kind of circle back to the medical anthropologist angle, because what you said, it sounds so [Page//00:06:00] obvious, right? And, and I'm going to repeat it and it's going to sound obvious again, that as you take an indigenous culture and you industrialize it, they end up where we are, right?
Same, same challenges.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. And that's when I realized is I actually had a former business partner, this beautiful man named Skye, really beautiful human. And he helped me find the words that were not living in alignment with our evolutionary biology. And that's what it was. That's what I was realizing. I wasn't sure how to put it into words at the time, but that's what it was.
And that's what I continue to say and teach is that we weren't living in alignment with our evolutionary biology. And there's something called co evolutionary relationships. That's just a fancy talk for the fact that all of existence evolved as one, it didn't evolve like this flower over there by itself and that tree over there by itself and that bug over there by itself and that human over there by itself.
No, and that those people on that continent and those people and then that tribe in that village. No. We are all one, everything, [Page//00:07:00] like we know this through unified field theory and physics, like we are one existence, and so everything has co evolved together. And so when you start doing things that don't work with the whole big, big picture of nature, with the brilliant genius intelligence of nature, then you get fallout.
That's when things fall apart. And I think a lot of us are led to believe that nature is so cruel and you know, geniuses make mistakes. Now, I always say nature's genius and we are nature and if we can tap into our inner genius, then we can heal from cell to soul. That's what I want people to understand.
But, you know, there are genetic mutations that cause problems, you know, like geniuses make mistakes, right? And that's part of evolution too. But overall, When, when you look at cultures, you know, like classic example, most of you have heard about like the Blue Zones project, like Okinawans or Sardinians, you look at people who lived a more traditional lifestyle, they got their nutritional needs met, they got, they lived with better circadian rhythms, well at least they did, it's one [Page//00:08:00] point, and you know, and they have their social and emotional needs met, you know, when they get their most basic human needs met, Not only do they have more centenarians, like they live longer, but they live better.
And there are people who are 103, 104, they're still having sex. They're squatting on the floor, standing up. They can climb upstairs. They're able bodied. They're not disabled like we are. We have the shortest disability free lifespan of any industrialized nation. We have the shortest lifespan of any industrialized nation.
And we have the most disease and mental illness. What is that? And we have so much money and technology. What is that telling us?
Julie Michelson: Right. Right. So, so how, here we are, Although
Traci Potterf: Zoom, which is awesome.
Julie Michelson: not, not that I would mind, you know, maybe living in Sardinia, but, but how do I, because I know, you know, again, we don't have these conversations, we want to shed light and not spread doom and gloom. And it's like, okay, well, we're here now we're in this sick, fat, tired, you know, you know, [Page//00:09:00] Nation and or wherever listeners are, you know, there isn't anywhere, even in the blue, even the blue zones are touched by all of this now.
Traci Potterf: right, they are
Julie Michelson: So, so what are the things we can focus on, you know, and, and maybe through that, we can also to highlight some of the, this autoimmunity podcast, right?
Traci Potterf: Well, this all goes back to everything's connected. Right? So to answer your further two points there. So I'll start with the first thing you said is what, what's the solution? Like, how can we be solutions oriented not doom and gloom? Well, one of the things we've got to stop talking about mental and physical illness is a war against or we're battling, like stop using war, destructive war, colonization, euphemisms, like we're going to overtake and overpower and conquer and whatever, you know, sometimes you do want to kill some parasites, sometimes you want to kill some things, but like overall, you know, We need to start [Page//00:10:00] shifting the way we think to start shifting the way we behave and feel.
And we've got to start creating a culture of nurture instead of a culture of war. We've got to start honoring ourselves as extensions of nature. We need to learn about the intelligence and genius of nature. And one of the super fun things about weaving together, how, how is our, if we connect anxiety and autoimmunity together, you're going to start to see connections that will start opening up your awareness.
To that intelligence of nature and the, the, it will point to the solutions like once you understand the underlying mechanisms and connections, then the solutions become obvious. So I'm not saying we have to go, you know, put on the loincloth and live in a cave or forest, although that could sound like fun, especially if your immune system could tolerate all the different critters and and things like that, but like.
But like, how can we live in our, you know, so called modern world or whatever, or I don't, I want to be careful with language because I don't want to say indigenous people aren't modern, they [Page//00:11:00] are, you know, but how can we live in our industrialized process world and start shifting the needle on how the culture we're co creating together because culture is something we're creating every moment with every, with the money we spend, with how we breathe, with how we think, with how we speak, with how we connect with each other, with the choices we make for ourselves and what we share with others.
We, we, we, we, culture is dynamic. It's not fixed. And so when we realized that when we make cultural shifts, we make biological shifts, and when we make biological shifts, we make cultural shifts, that it's all in a dance together. Then we realized we have more power than we thought telling someone like 19 year old little me.
Who was like, Oh my God, I must be just defective and it must be my genes. Cause you know, the truth was my dad had severe mental illness. He was a psychiatrist who was severely abused as a child, grew up in rural Kansas, closet gay, he would have been probably beat to death if he had come out, he even got arrested for being gay once, but he would never admit it.
But I mean, he had a, he had a record, you know, but he [Page//00:12:00] just. He, um, he went through a lot. He had severe unresolved trauma. And so, and even as a psychiatrist, he wouldn't talk about it or admit to it because there was so much shame. So we've got to stop it. And one of the things I want people to realize is that, and I'm going to like really pause before I say this, I want you to listen.
Anxiety is a natural response to an unnatural environment. Okay. We have normalized a toxic culture that tries to override nature instead of working with its intelligence. And one of the things I learned, it seems so cliche, but if you do look at so many indigenous cultures, they revered nature. They revered rocks and bugs and dirt, and they saw connections that we've, we miss now.
We don't see those connections. You know, we've learned other cool things, but we're missing these connections. And so one of my passions in life is to help weave together [Page//00:13:00] this tapestry, put that tapestry of nature back together in our consciousness so that we can move forward in our lives in ways that not only heal our illnesses, but create thriving, satisfying lives.
Julie Michelson: So beautiful. And, um, so for listeners that, and I see all the time in practice, you know, anxiety and chronic stress, it's all the same. It's on a spectrum, just like autoimmunity is It's on an inflammation spectrum, right? So you've got that early aging and decline you were talking about all the way to autoimmunity.
Same thing. We all are living with chronic stress and that can tip into anxiety. And some of it, as you mentioned is like tools, what tools, you know, your, your dad had a toolbox full of medication,
Traci Potterf: That's it. That's all
Julie Michelson: you have this beautiful expanse of, of tools that, that you help people [Page//00:14:00] with. Um, so how do we, in our industrialized modern processed worlds, how do you help people incorporate?
Cause I love, you know, it is a tapestry and there is no, it isn't, we're not going to go live in a cave. Like that's not realistic. It's not
Traci Potterf: some people, some people do. I actually literally met someone the other day who lived in a cave in the Mojave Desert, but yeah, most of us are not going to live in a cave.
Julie Michelson: And that. After time can create it's a, you know, then where's your social circle, where's your, you know,
Traci Potterf: exactly. Yeah. So here's the deal. So we don't have to reject the things that, that serve us. We just need to upgrade the things that don't to things that do and, um, so I can, would you like me to say kind of what my pillars, my toolboxes are first, or would you like me to talk about the connection between anxiety and autoimmunity first?
What do you think?
Julie Michelson: Let's do the connection first and then move into the toolbox.
Traci Potterf: Cause I think the connection points to the [Page//00:15:00] toolbox. So I think that's a good call Julie. Okay. So. One thing that's interesting, like, you know, I'm sure Julie's aware of this, practitioners are probably aware of this, but this is something that your average person, I remember the day I learned this.
Was that your vagus nerve, your vagus nerve, the longest nerve in your body, that's become very trendy to know about this now, which is such a cool trend. It's way more exciting than skinny jeans. So we're, we have this nerve that innervates like our internal organs, including a lot of our digestive tract.
And it's crucial, you know, for calming down our nervous system. But guess what it also does. It regulates cytokine storms. Well, cytokine storms are part of the immune system that we learned about during COVID
Julie Michelson: I was just going to say, nobody knew what those were
Traci Potterf: until COVID, right? So yeah, no one knew what cytokine storms were, but cytokine ramped up.
And [Page//00:16:00] that's what was killing people from COVID. They were dying because their own immune system was so ramped. that it killed them on accident. That wasn't the intention of the immune system, but they're nervous systems because of lifestyle and all these disease risks, but also just stress, anxiety, overwhelm of the modern world.
People's ability to regulate or modulate their immune systems for it to have a proper response was. Being dampened by the nervous system being overwrought. So, so what I want you to understand, that's just one example, it's so intricate. The way the immune system and the nervous system are physiologically the same structures.
Like they're overlapping in so many ways. They communicate, they're, the way our parts communicate with each other. I mean, just like as a quick overview, and I'll try not to rabbit hole this. But basically, there's your nerves, your nerves, your cranial nerves. One of which is the vagus nerve constantly talking between your brain and [Page//00:17:00] body, especially between with the vagus nerve.
We're kind of obsessed with that because it's talking. It's not only a calming, soothing nerve, but it's talking to play such an important role in how the gut talks to the brain. So we know if we have gut issues we have brain issues we know if our microbiome the microbes that make us up we're more microbial than human or at least as much microbial as human.
We're getting as much DNA information from our microbe cells as our human cells. We are. symbiotic creatures, right? And so these critters are excreting chemicals that are like signaling our nervous system. And there's a super highway through neurons, through chemical signaling, through these things called neuroendocrine cells that are like a cross between a hormone and a neurotransmitter.
I mean, we're like magic. Like the way our, our brains and our, and our internal organs and ourselves are all talking to each other. And so you cannot separate out an immune response from a nervous system response, because your nervous system is telling your immune system what to do all the time. The problem is, is that if you're in a constant state of overwhelm, if you're a constant state of [Page//00:18:00] hyper vigilance of stress now, and when, when I get to my pillars, my toolboxes, you're going to see that stress is so much bigger.
than what we think of it. It's not just work. It's not just the kids. It's not just your spouse. It's not just, you know, time management. Yes, all those things, but there's so much more to what stresses our bodies out. And, you know, so what I want people to understand is I think of autoimmunity as immunological PTSD.
So your immune system has been hammered and hammered and hammered and hammered, and it becomes so hyper vigilant, just like when a person has trauma, whether it's complex trauma from childhood, which more people have it than not, or single incidence trauma or single event trauma, it creates A hypervigilant nervous system where you're just, your nervous system wants so bad to protect you.
Your body is your most loyal, sweet protector and it wants to protect you so bad. And when we get, we get really scared like that, we get, we don't get our needs met. We're really pushed to [Page//00:19:00] our edge. Our nervous system becomes hypervigilant and it is looking for a threat. It's been, it's been taught. I'm not safe.
I'm not safe. So I've got to protect Julie. I've got to protect Traci. I've got to protect, it wants to protect you. So it becomes, it's just looking constantly for a threat. And then it becomes what we call dysregulated because it's overactive and then we're nervous, we're shaking, we're trembling, maybe we become depressed, we become anxious, and, but we also, because of the stress on the body and the impact of all these stress hormones, it starts affecting our physiology.
Stress triggers inflammation. Right. And so we become inflamed. Um, also stress makes our, our gastric juices not secrete as much. So it slows down our digestion and we don't absorb, you don't make enough hydrochloric acid in your stomach. You don't release enough pancreatic enzymes and bile in your small intestines.
Like it just goes on and
Julie Michelson: I always say you don't have to digest lunch if you don't outrun the tiger, right? Like
Traci Potterf: right.
Julie Michelson: our system [Page//00:20:00] isn't set up for that ongoing stress,
Traci Potterf: and you don't need a libido if you're going to get eaten
Julie Michelson: right. Or yeah,
Traci Potterf: And you don't really need to get, yeah, and you don't need to really kill infections or fight off, you know, like, really, you just need to, like, prepare for impact, you know, so we'll have inflammation in the joints, we'll have inflammation in the sore muscle, like, we'll get icky all over because our body's so inflamed, preparing for impact, but also your body thinks, but there could be famine.
You know, so it's
Julie Michelson: Hold on to that fat.
Traci Potterf: going to affect your metabolism. Yeah, hold on to that fat, right? So how do you stress out? How do you fatten up chickens naturally? Like, this is horrible, but like, you know, in factory farms, they'll put chickens like in a, you know, in under bright fluorescent lights all day and all night.
So they, their circadian rhythms don't work and it stresses them out so much that it makes them gain weight, which is like speaks
Julie Michelson: That's why we, that's why we say don't eat that. Um,
Traci Potterf: yeah. I mean, well, that's what we say. Like, watch your circadian, like watch your, you know, turn off the lights at night, get off your
Julie Michelson: But also don't, [Page//00:21:00] don't eat the factory
Traci Potterf: Oh, yeah. Don't need the factory
Julie Michelson: That's what I meant. Um, but, but
Traci Potterf: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: also I want to highlight because I, I just point out for listeners. So I know that there are. The majority of listeners are like, yeah, okay. You know, I feel that I get that.
I hear you. I understand like, oh, okay. These aren't two separate things. My anxiety and my auto immunity I'm one
Traci Potterf: I do?
Julie Michelson: but I do, I do encounter people that are so conditioned to be in chronic stress. They don't feel stressed out and they'll tell you I'm stressed.
Traci Potterf: I'm fine. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Right. I'm like, well, you just told me about your life and now I'm stressed.
So I think we have some work to do.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. No, self awareness is a huge part of it. Yeah. Yeah. You're right.
Julie Michelson: you know, at your wit's end to, to have a stress load or an anxiety level that is impacting your
Traci Potterf: Absolutely. [Page//00:22:00] And that's why I want to like put a pin in, like, let's broaden our definition of stress. We need, we can't. We can't just say it's just this narrow, like I'm, I'm having panic attacks. And then if, if I'm not having panic attacks, I'm not stressed. Like, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah. And we, we do become habituated to things that are uncomfortable.
And one of my favorite things with clients is when people like things start resolving, they start feeling good. Like they didn't even realize how not good they felt like until they feeling good and they didn't realize, like, it's like people crying tears of joy and wonder and awe that they could feel so good after their whole lifetime of feeling the way they thought was normal and thought was fine, you know?
So that's a really legitimate point, and I did want to like, just finish up the autoimmunity thing. I'm almost done, but so one of the things I wanted to like, talk about what, like, so, so I was establishing how the nervous system and the, you know, the gut, you know, all that stuff is connected. We know the gut and the immune system are connected.
We know the gut and the brain are connected. Um, we talk about, I recommend, um. I listened to your interview with Myles [Page//00:23:00] Nichols. Um, so I'm going to skip over some details that he covered very nicely in, in that interview. So if you haven't, um, you know, after this interview, if you could go listen to the interview with Myles Nichols, or really all of them, they're great.
Um, that would be wonderful. Um, so anyway, but. We, he did talk about autoantibodies and we, when we talk about neuroinflammation, so one of the things I'm constantly educating people about is neuroinflammation, which is inflammation of the brain and nervous system. And so often when you have autoimmunity, your immune system again, is hypervigilant.
It has PTSD so it's looking for something to protect you from and so it gets confused and there's molecular mimicry where your body gets confused and it confuses certain molecule chain molecular patterning, and it thinks, oh, that's gluten. But no, that was your thyroid or it thinks, Oh, that's what it could be gluten again, or it could be dairy, or it could be another food.
It could be, it could be a pathogen. It could be lime. It could [Page//00:24:00] be mold. It could be, it could be anything. It could be a parasite. It could be bacteria, virus, your body can get fused, confused, and it'll accidentally attack brain tissue or heart tissue or in your autoimmune condition is just, it's all the same.
It's just, we're naming the condition based on the tissues it affects, but really on the same process, like whichever one showed up first, right? And it's so, you know, but because we eat so much wheat and gluten, our thyroids, often Hashimoto's becomes one of the first ones, but also our guts are so messed up.
So Crohn's is so, so rampant, but also a lot of people may not have full on Crohn's autoimmunity, but they have colitis, IBD, IBS, you know, so, so what's happening is the body is just, you know, you have your Allostatic load, like how much your body can handle. Like it's like a bucket of tolerance of how much stuff your body can sweep, body can handle before that bucket spills over and things start breaking down.
You can't, you know, you can't hold it all together. You can only, your body can only do so much. And so that's what I'm going to get to, like what we do about this. Right. But I just want you to [Page//00:25:00] understand that. You know, the reason your practitioners want to heal your gut to heal your autoimmunity, is it plays such a central role in the immune system, you know, and also one of the pieces of work that people want to skip right over is the nervous system, reconditioning the nervous system, rewiring.
I'll take my pills. I'll even change my diet. But stop and like work on, you know, focus on my thoughts and my beliefs and like take 15 minutes to meditate in the morning. Are you crazy? I can't meditate. I suck at meditation. So these are limiting beliefs that I, you know, you can get rid of very quickly.
They're not you. It's just conditioning. It's not who you are. So I just want people to understand that the same things that are causing your autoimmunity. Are causing your stress, overwhelming anxiety and even depression or any other mental or mood struggles, grumpiness, whatever. And I want you to understand that the very autoimmune condition, the autoantibodies are actually also [Page//00:26:00] triggering brain issues.
So I want people to understand that anxiety. It's how the brain says, ouch, ouch, right? So is depression. So is fatigue, brain fog. These are always, the brain says, ouch. And so, instead of thinking there's something wrong with me, because my brain is saying, ouch, would you say if you put your hand on a hot stove, and it hurt and your body told you, ouch, and told you to jerk it away, would you say, Oh, stupid body.
You stupid
Julie Michelson: Hold it there.
Traci Potterf: you. I'm going to
Julie Michelson: a baby.
Traci Potterf: I'm going to take some painkillers. I'm going to numb my hand so I can put it right back on the hot stove and it won't hurt. You don't do that, right? If your house is burning down and the smoke alarm goes off. Do you just take this bat, the battery out of the smoke alarm and say, okay, that should fix it.
No, your house will still burn down. So this, one of the things we need to learn is to feel. We're taught not to feel. We're taught to be [Page//00:27:00] all in our heads and not in our bodies. We're taught to, if we have to pee, ignore it. We're taught, we're thirsty, ignore it. We're hungry, ignore it. Statistically, men are a little bit better than women at like, you know, listening, you know, being like, I'm hungry.
I'm going to eat. I'm thirsty. I'm going to, you know, whatever. I'm going to take it up here on the sofa,
Julie Michelson: Maybe with their physical feelings, but not necessarily the emotional.
Traci Potterf: you're right. You're right. So in terms of bodily, like, urgent bodily needs.
Julie Michelson: all suck,
Traci Potterf: Yeah, we're all kind of could do a lot
Julie Michelson: but we all
Traci Potterf: and then emotion. Yeah, and then emotional needs.
Yeah, that's a whole other realm. I've actually talked to a lot of men about their struggles with like, not even knowing how to feel not to know what to do with their feelings or how to talk about it. So, and as a culture, we've also done a lot of disservice to men. Um, you know, the whole boys don't cry thing that used to be the old school way and telling, like the definition of strength is being numb and insensitive and aggressive and, and not feeling and not being vulnerable.
It takes so much bravery and strength to be vulnerable and
Julie Michelson: Absolutely.
Traci Potterf: to admit you're [Page//00:28:00] wrong and to like receive and not just, you know, whatever. And to tune into other people's feelings and needs. Those are super powers. Those are not weakness.
Julie Michelson: So I want to make sure that we, we touch and I know I, some of it has already come up, but, but the toolbox, the,
Traci Potterf: Yeah, I'm ready for it. I'm
Julie Michelson: right,
Traci Potterf: Okay, so now that we've established that that's all connected, um, hopefully it'll make sense now why you have to cover these three, I call them pillars or three toolboxes, you have to do all three of these, or you will not heal your anxiety, you will not heal your autoimmunity.
A lot of people, one of the reasons I got into like, um, functional mental health is I, when people would come to me with autoimmunity and gut issues is, you know, we would address those things and then their mental health issues would just disappear. Like, and I know you've experienced that too, Julie. My depression is gone.
My anxiety is gone. Like, you know, I was like, okay, let's catch people who don't know they have autoimmunity or they don't know they have Lyme. They don't know they have toxic mold. They don't know,
Julie Michelson: it or
Traci Potterf: like, yeah.
Julie Michelson: be
Traci Potterf: catch him a while. Let's let's get the [Page//00:29:00] pain of that smoke alarm and let's have them go in and like heal all of it right because really the same toolboxes work for both because it's all connected right so toolbox one.
And I want people to explore the hidden medical causes of anxiety. What is causing the neuro inflammation or in the case of autoimmunity what's causing this immune dysregulation. And so often, it is things like. You know, things that are invisible, like toxic mold that you just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there, especially if you live in a high humidity environment like Hawaii or Florida, or, you know, I live in Hawaii right now.
And so, um, and then there's, you know, like a lot of people have like tick borne infections or some form of line. And they don't want to find out if they have Mulder Lyme, because they have heard people have such a horrible time getting rid of it, or they think it ruins your life, so they don't want to know.
But the thing is, there are solutions. If you get the right help, you can get over it. Like, it's better to know and treat it than to [Page//00:30:00] like, be like, la la la, I don't want to know. And by the way, I've done that myself, even for what I do for a living. I put off finding out some stuff about my body that like, if I had known sooner, it would have saved me six figures of money and like, like years of pain and suffering.
So I'm really big on that.
Julie Michelson: well, we're all human
Traci Potterf: were all human, we're all human. So, you know, you could have, you know, thyroid disease. You could have, you know,
Julie Michelson: things we're testing
Traci Potterf: Yeah. So hidden these hidden medical causes. So toolbox one. Functional practitioner, hidden medical causes, things that are causing ouch in your digestive system, ouch in your cells, ouch in your brain, so neuro, sources of neuroinflammation and immune system dysregulation.
So that's box one. So that's the, go to the, go to the practitioner, run the tests, take the supplements. Okay. A lot of people seem okay with that part. Okay, now moving right along. The second toolbox is your lifestyle. In your lifestyle, yes, we hear diet and exercise. It's become so cliche, we're almost numb to it.
Um, what if we hear it as [Page//00:31:00] self nurture, as nourishment and movement and play, as relationships, as your daily thoughts and actions? Just the thoughts in our heads are one of the hugest parts of our lifestyles, and we don't think of that as lifestyle. Um, our physical environment, do you have mold in your house, you know, or, you know, whatever, are you exposed to some kind of fumes or toxic chemicals at work?
Like, you know what, you know, so your environment, your physical environment, but also your social emotional environment, your relationships with other humans, you know, these are, or even if you have connections with other humans or are you alienated, right? So this is all lifestyle. And the thing is, I don't like the word diet.
I use it, but I don't love it. Because it's, I like nurture, I like nourishment, I like yummy, I like food, I like, you know, people have grown to be ashamed, well I love food, like it's a bad thing, yes, you have an evolutionary wiring to love food, otherwise you would flourish, this is a good thing. You know, you're supposed to want pleasure, we are wired for [Page//00:32:00] pleasure.
So I made up this term that I teach people called healthy hedonism. So hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure of wanting to feel good. Guess what? That's normal. You should do that. I encourage it. Here's the deal. Are your sources of pleasure destroying you? Or are they uplifting you? Hugs. Uplift you. Alcohol.
It's a poison. I'm not saying you can never drink any. But let's not lie to ourselves.
Julie Michelson: be, yeah, beware me.
Traci Potterf: yeah, be aware, you know, like, you know, caffeine, I hate to say it is a neurotoxin. And one of the primary causes of anxiety, I have clients who will just we you have to wean off caffeine, you cannot quit cold turkey, I have clients, they wean off caffeine, and they suddenly they have more not less energy once they get over the hump.
And their anxiety goes from an eight to a four or to a two or to zero. You know, so it's amazing how many things we do that we think, oh, this will give me energy. No! Caffeine is like living off a credit card. You're stealing from your future self. You're [Page//00:33:00] running yourself into the ground. You need to create true cellular energy through rest, through nutrition, through hugs, through relationships, through love, through support.
So, like, it's so important. To become the artist of your life and you know, to craft your thoughts, to craft your daily habits and routines and make them things you enjoy that lift you up. Because if you fall in love with your life, you don't need willpower. And when you give your body the things that needs to thrive, it feels so good.
You get this natural high, but it makes alcohol seem like a downer. It makes like sugar seem like a downer. It makes. Caffeine seem like a downer. It makes codependent relationships seem like a downer. It seems like rushing to get through your checklist a downer. Like suddenly you are at home in your soul.
You're so rooted in the essence of what you are. You're back in your core, like you're back in balance and you're so in this beautiful alignment and things in your life start, you start experiencing more synchronicity [Page//00:34:00] and life starts to feel like magic and like things in your external world start shifting.
Your relationships start getting better. There is no end. to this. And there's research showing that people with autoimmunity, also with cancer, are personalities who tend to put themselves last, who tend to be like, you are so great. You can depend on this person for everything. This person, even when they were battling with Crohn's disease or cancer.
They kept going and volunteering and they kept getting involved in all these things and they kept serving their spouse and they kept, you know, and like, yeah. And then that's their obituary. And someone who has brought this to public light is Gabor Mate. He talks openly about, he has, he has great like YouTube videos and all kinds of things talking where he reads obituaries of people who died of conditions because they didn't take care of themselves.
And dying a martyr is not the way to use the gift of a life. [Page//00:35:00] And I'm thinking of my mother who had Crohn's disease. I got into functional medicine because they wanted to remove her colon, give her a colostomy, a permanent colectomy and her to have a colostomy bag the rest of her life. And I was like, I'm not, no, no, my mom cannot lose her colon.
She cannot never use her anus again. This is not okay. You know, and that's how I got into functional medicine. It wasn't, I didn't start out with an anxiety focus. I started out like saving my mom's life and we, by just changing her lifestyle, there were just a couple of supplements she used, but all with lifestyle and emotional work.
She got into, she was, became quiescent, which is like what you say for remission from autoimmunity in 2004. She's 83. She's never had a relapse since, and she has not been on any immunosuppressant drugs or drugs for, for any of this. And yet doctors, if she has anything happen, like she got SIBO and, and they were like, Oh, it must be colitis or Crohn's or they wanted to put her in a, and I was like, no, can we do a SIBO breath test?
And her SIBO levels were through the roof. She'd gotten food poisoning and it [Page//00:36:00] turned to SIBO. And they didn't want to test for that because they were like, well, you're a Crohn's patient to hammer. Everything looks like
Julie Michelson: Yeah, absolutely.
Traci Potterf: So yeah.
Julie Michelson: And
Traci Potterf: And then the third,
Julie Michelson: pillar,
Traci Potterf: and then the third pillar. So like a lifestyle you're in love with hidden medical causes.
And then the third pillar is. rewiring your nervous system. Isn't it magical? We have neuroplasticity. We used to think a nerve neuron died. It couldn't regenerate. We used to think that's just how you are. No, we are plastic elastic. We are neuroplastic, elastic. We are formable creatures. We are programming ourselves daily society, and external stimulus is programming us daily.
The cool thing is we can reprogram and rewire. There are more and more people speaking up, you know, from the science space into the public space. Someone you guys have probably heard of is Andrew Huberman from Stanford, Stanford neuroscientists. He's really [Page//00:37:00] putting it out there that look at all these things you can do to rewire your brain.
This information has been around for a long time. These practices he talks about have been around forever.
Julie Michelson: the ancient practices is the new science.
Traci Potterf: yes, yes, exactly.
Julie Michelson: I love it because some people really need to see the science or know their science before they'll just take that leap.
Traci Potterf: It helps me. It motivates me. When you learn, when you know, for example, he talks about the physiological side, right? This is not a new thing. This is something primal. This is the genius of nature. The genius of nature has you naturally when you're sleeping, when you're upset, when you're crying, whether you're a baby or an adult, where you, you inhale, you inhale and you exhale.
So you're like, you know,
Julie Michelson: of any infants or toddler who's been crying and they're settling back down, [Page//00:38:00] like they all do it.
Traci Potterf: Yeah, it's nature. You'll do it. You have a big cry and don't you hold in your cries, people. You got to cry. You got to let it out. Don't hold in a cry. Okay. And we have a culture where we cover our face and apologize when we cry. Why? Do you do that when you laugh?
Julie Michelson: Conditioning.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. I mean,
Julie Michelson: sometimes, cause I've been known to laugh inappropriately.
That's definitely happened,
Traci Potterf: yeah,
Julie Michelson: but that's okay. Self
Traci Potterf: such a natural. Yeah, crying is such a natural release. It's like burping or farting or going to the bathroom or peeing or like you sweating. You know, sneezing. Like it's how your body releases.
Julie Michelson: cleanse. It's a, yeah,
Traci Potterf: It's a beautiful thing and people imagine because our minds feel so like real and so strong and it feels like to change my thoughts.
It's going to take like it's going to be like trying to pick up the Empire State Building with my [Page//00:39:00] with my pinky finger or something like that, you know, we think it's like this huge thing, but but Neuroscience is showing in like, there are different breath work, whether it's the physiological side, there's a, uh, a practice called pendulation that I have a, I have a recorded, I have a guided meditation on the homepage of my website that teaches you to do this.
It teaches you embodiment. It gets you to feel your body, which we all need to do more of all of us. Um, it, it helps you sleep. It helps down regulate pain. It actually helps stop pain, helps calm anxiety, overwhelm, stress tension. It's I start out all my sessions with my clients. I, we, not every session, but the first kickoff session, we do this at the beginning and people are just blown away at how calm, like in blissful they feel you have, you have the ability to create bliss.
And I'm not saying you can't have healthy desserts because you can't and I'm not saying you can't have any food and I'm not saying you can never have a glass of wine. I'm just saying the pleasure you can [Page//00:40:00] create internally with your own internal pharmacy through breathing, through how you focus your attention, through how you move your body is incredible.
It is, you can get downright euphoric. And what's also cool about it is when you get in these brain states, you make different choices. You get solutions to problems that have been eating at you for years. You see things from in new ways you never could have forced through your intellect. You tap into your wisdom brain.
You become genius. That's your inner genius. That's part of it. You have inner genius, the healing power of your cells, of your DNA, of your microbes, epigenetics, neuroplasticity. Like we have the ability. And just. You can, you can, you know, the physiological side, you know, I'm trying to remember the name of the scientist.
Is it at UC Irvine? Oh, where is it? Yours at UCLA. I can't remember. I don't know if you know, but anyway, one of the guys who's doing the big research on the physiological side, they're finding that doing it five minutes a day, that's about 30 [Page//00:41:00] breaths, five minutes a day is changing people's brain structures within a matter of weeks, like six weeks.
Imagine six months, what it will do to your brain. That's five minutes a day, right?
Julie Michelson: Well, and that's so important for people. I think that is you, you hit on that resistance of, you know, I've had these thought patterns for decades. It's going to take decades to shift it. And that's not true. Even something as simple as writing three gratitudes a day, how quickly you can start shifting.
Traci Potterf: Right. Why? Why is gratitude all the rage? Because
Julie Michelson: So powerful.
Traci Potterf: Because we have a negativity bias. Again, hypervigilance. Something's wrong. I'm not good enough. This isn't it. Something's wrong. I'm not good enough. This isn't it. I got those three things from my friend Sage. He was one of my first, the first people that introduced me to meditation and open eye meditation and all these magical, my magical inner world.
And, and, and that's what the default, you know, of the negativity bias it's, it's to make us [Page//00:42:00] survive. But it, we can't thrive when we're like that. So by just appreciating, you know, like, you know, just being like appreciating things like, especially after I lived in Cuba, I really got good at appreciating electricity and toilet paper and like, you know, all kinds of things, you know, being able to say my opinion out loud without getting thrown in jail and like, you know, whatever.
So like, just, um, there are so many things that are surrounding us constantly that we almost take for granted, like here I have like this lovely, you know, like I have a sweet potato, and it's like, it's orange and bright and beautiful inside I have like all this access to food like I mean there's so much to have this beautiful plant behind me and I have a beautiful home and I have beautiful friends and yeah, do I have problems and challenges and struggles?
Yeah, absolutely. But, but appreciation is so just making a habit of it. As much as we are inclined to complain, if we could like, if we could just appreciate a fraction of what we complain, amazing. Sometimes we gotta vent. Sometimes [Page//00:43:00] you gotta get it out. So,
Julie Michelson: Well, and I always try to clarify having a gratitude practice. doesn't mean you weren't already a grateful person. It's just what you're saying is shifting that focus to the positive. And then what, then you're experiencing everything through that lens and who doesn't want that?
Traci Potterf: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: from all of the healing properties, it happens to also feel good.
Traci Potterf: Right. And you just said, you just said something that is gold, which is like, if we do the things, this has a caveat. If we do the things that make us feel good, we will actually heal our illnesses. And if we do the things that heal our illnesses, it will make us feel good. There's no separation there. Now, caveat heroin.
Julie Michelson: Long term.
Traci Potterf: never done it. I've never, yeah, I've never done heroin.
Julie Michelson: either.
Traci Potterf: But I hear it feels really good. You know, um, you know, there are things that feel [Page//00:44:00] good in the moment, but they hurt us in the long run. And unfortunately, yeah, yeah, we have, we have, we have a culture that has fetishized destructive pleasures.
Alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, yeah, like simple carbohydrates, definitely like gluten, um, you know, like
Julie Michelson: not talking about that. We're talking about, you know, and you, you touched on it earlier as well. The, this idea of, you know, as we start to nourish our body and, and positively, you know, it, it becomes its own fuel.
Traci Potterf: right. I like how you
Julie Michelson: the healing. Right. It
Traci Potterf: I love that. Yeah. Perfectly said. And you know, the thing is, is I teach people, you know, through my healthy hedonism approach to broaden your pleasure palette. If you're painting and you only have black and white, you're not going to make a very pretty rainbow. And then someone says, well, you can't paint black and white anymore.
You're like, oh crap. [Page//00:45:00] I can never paint a rainbow. Well, you weren't even painting a rainbow to begin with. So when, when you have all the colors and you can mix and match them and all these beautiful creative ways, then your life comes into full color. And so. You have to like really start focusing on what are things that feel good that uplift me.
Because instead of these, I call them cheap thrills, things that make you feel good now, but then the future self, I want you guys to anthropomorphize your future self, future Traci, future Julie, future, whatever your name is, look out for your future self and thank your past self. When you do something nice, like you made yourself leftovers at dinner.
So it's lunchtime and now you have this really amazing lunch. Thank your past self. When I go on a trip, I make extra food and put it in the freezer. So when I get back, I have like food already. And I think past Traci, cause that was really nice of her to do that for me.
Julie Michelson: And
Traci Potterf: that what. Yeah, whatever choices you're making, and not to make this a heavy thing.
I like to make it fun and playful, but you just, like, whatever your mundane day to day choices are, how you're breathing, how you're thinking, how you're eating, [Page//00:46:00] if you go to bed, if you went to bed early enough and got enough sleep, that's going to affect tomorrow you, and today you is living with the consequences of yesterday you, and you from months and years ago.
So, like, if
Julie Michelson: And that's where the power is. That's how we get to change.
Traci Potterf: Right. So if you can look out, first, understand that anything that feels resistant to change, it's literally just a thought. It's not a biological reality. It's just a habit of thinking, and it can be changed. And all you have to do is repeat is like, it's called cognitive reframing.
You just change the thought and you look for evidence that it's true until you're convinced it's your new reality. And it takes. days to weeks, sometimes two days a day, you know, it depends on what the thing is and how deep it is, but we can change a lot in just weeks. We can like, like I do three month programs and people in three months are like, whoa, that's not very much time.
A lot of
Julie Michelson: it's powerful.
Traci Potterf: people want things tomorrow, like, you know, I said, you have to heal at the [Page//00:47:00] speed of life, not at the speed of amazon. com, right? So, so like, you know, give your give yourself time. You took time to get here. You need time to get out to heal any major illness. Give yourself a year. Give yourself 3 years.
I don't know, but like, within 3 months, you can
Julie Michelson: going to feel.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. You'll feel changes all along the way.
Julie Michelson: that is the perfect segue into what is Dr. Traci's one step that listeners can take. This is always such a hard one, but starting today, we covered a lot of things and we know there are many ways to things that will move the needle, but what's one step listeners can take starting today.
Traci Potterf: I'm so glad you asked. It goes back to paying attention to how we feel, but we have a culture that teaches us to be full steam ahead, not feeling. That's why I think having a practice every morning and that you can do it at night too, but it's most powerful research shows it's most powerful, makes the most brain changes in the most life impact.[Page//00:48:00]
First thing in the morning, pee, drink water, do your thing, let your pet out to go to the bathroom, whatever. But as soon as you can, after you wake up, I want you to sit down. It would be nice if you had your feet on the earth and, you know, could get outdoors a little bit, you know, even in your house, I want you to sit down, close your eyes and breathe and feel.
Now you can try the pendulation meditation on my website, innergenioushealth. com. Um, and it will teach you a very specific technique to, it's a kind of somatic meditation to get into your body. And to connect to your breath. And it's going to be so structured that it doesn't matter if you have a giant monkey mind or if you're agitated or whatever, it's okay.
It's fine. It doesn't matter any way you are to show up how you are and do it. And if you can just give yourself even 15 minutes a day. Yeah, if you do an hour long meditation, that's wonderful. That's wonderful, too. But if you can just give yourself 15 minutes a day, even five to start your day coming into yourself, breathing and [Page//00:49:00] feeling.
You'll notice how you feel throughout the day, you'll take, you'll make different decisions, you'll see the world differently, making changes and the rest of your health will suddenly start feeling doable, you will start to feel empowered. So if you start with the inside. This is the part the work that people tend to want to avoid the most, and the part that gives you the fastest results.
And it has a domino effect into every other area because then you will figure out if you don't have a practitioner that's working for you, you will find your way. I promise it'll just like, it'll, you'll be led to the right practitioner. You'll be led to the right answers that things will intuitively come to you that you couldn't see before.
So the magic of meditation, the magic of breathing and feeling. Meditation isn't erasing your thoughts and clearing your mind. Like, that's a myth. Your thoughts will stop when you're brain dead. Like, otherwise,
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Traci Potterf: if your thoughts. It's okay. You're just focusing on breathing and feeling. It's so simple. We make it out to be this very [Page//00:50:00] complicated thing.
You know, just stop and breathe and feel. If you have some structured something to listen to until you really master it, that's great. If you've already mastered it, just make time for it. And then everything else will start to fall into place.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. And before we wrap up for people listening on the go, where's the best place to find you?
Traci Potterf: Inner genius health.com so that some people think I'm saying energy, I'm saying inner like
Julie Michelson: inner. Yes.
Traci Potterf: genius. So I N N E R G E N I u s health.com. So that's the, the genius of nature that is inside you, your inner genius. So inner genius health.com. And then I'm also on Instagram, Dr. Traci Potter of PhD.
I'm on Facebook and I have a YouTube channel.
Julie Michelson: Amazing.
Traci Potterf: If you look up my name, you'll find me because it's spelled so weird. I'm the only person in the whole internet with my name. So if
Julie Michelson: Potter plus an F.
Traci Potterf: yeah. Like Traci [Page//00:51:00] my Potter with enough, you'll find me.
Julie Michelson: Traci, thank you so much. You have given us amazing gold today and given listeners so many things that they can just take and run with. I really appreciate it.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. You're welcome. Just, I want people to know you can heal the anxiety and the auto immunity together at the same time. You can. I don't care what's happening your whole life. I don't care what runs in the family. You can resolve this both. You don't have to live with managing it. Like you can really resolve this.
Julie Michelson: Love it. Thank you. For everyone listening. Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspiredliving.show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. See you next week. [Page//00:52:00]
As a practitioner, speaker, and writer. Dr. Traci helps growth minded professionals overwhelmed by anxiety to find and fix the hidden causes with natural [Page//00:01:00] solutions so they can have a limitless life at peace in their own skin.
In today's conversation, we're talking about the connection between anxiety and autoimmunity. Traci's experience as a medical anthropologist has inspired her approach to holistic healing and reinforces that our connection to nature is essential for wellness.
Dr. Traci, welcome to the podcast.
Traci Potterf: Hey, Julie.
Julie Michelson: I'm so excited to dig in and connect the dots between anxiety and autoimmunity. Um, so thank you for joining us and, and taking us on this journey. And I would love to start with a bit of your story because you have such an interesting background. Um, and I don't, I don't know that I've ever met anybody else who has a medical anthropology background.[Page//00:02:00]
Um, and I know that that has shaped your approach. So so share with us a little bit of that journey.
Traci Potterf: Yeah, I wouldn't be the practitioner I am without starting out first as a medical anthropologist, also without starting out as the daughter of a psychiatrist. So that was kind of interesting how it all led me to functional medicine. Um, so I, yeah, I started out professionally as a medical anthropologist, and one of the things I was fascinated with, well, was indigenous cultures and how they were being impacted by industrialized culture.
And then I think a lot of us have an intuitive sense that guess what, when they started living like we do, they started getting the same. Diseases, not only what we think of as physical illnesses, but what we call mental illnesses. So I realized that what I've been told my whole life, having a father that was a psychiatrist was not correct.
And what he had been taught and what everyone been taught and what people are [Page//00:03:00] still teaching their, you know, a lot of psychiatrists and therapists and like so many people still believe this, that anxiety is a genetic chemical imbalance. which implies that there's something wrong with you genetically, you're defective, you're broken, and you just have to be on meds to manage your illness or manage your symptoms the rest of your life.
And then maybe you'll go to talk therapy. Now, maybe if you're super hip, you know about somatic therapy, which I'm a huge fan of. I love somatic therapy and all the trauma informed therapies. And those are amazing, but hopefully in our conversation will illuminate. There's so much more to it than that. And so that needs to be one of our tools.
That can't be all of our tools. And we'll also hopefully talk about medication. I never want to judge or demonize anyone who's using medication, especially if you're tolerating it, you're not having side effects, it's working for you, or it's sort of working for you for now. But I'm hoping by the end of this conversation, you'll see the medications as a stopgap.
It's like a [Page//00:04:00] cast and crutches or a band aid to get you Over the hump, just so you can feel well enough to do what it takes to heal yourself. And, and I grew up with a father's a psychiatrist. I love my father so much. He, his patients really appreciated his ability to help them, but his hands were tied in so many ways by medical politics and And a lot of just what he couldn't see himself because he had been trained to think a certain way.
And, you know, I grew up working in his office, like I was a kid and I was like making copies and my dad's psychiatric practice. He grew up on a farm. So he wanted everyone to like help out on the farm. So we went to the office. I did not like it by the way. And then, you know, I would be filing and stapling it because back then everything was paper.
And then as I got older, I got more grownup jobs, you know, like calling the pharmacies and, you know, like all kinds of stuff. I went to lunches with pharmaceutical representatives. They brought fajitas and Chinese food. And, you know, so my dad took me with him to see his patients. So he did, I did rounds with him.
I was like an emotional support kid. So [Page//00:05:00] from the time I was little to the time I was a grown adult until my father retired and then passed soon after. I went with my dad to see his patients. So I got, I grew up behind the scenes of psychiatry. So when I had my first panic attack at 19, before I had really had all these realizations as an anthropologist, I was in the old school way of thinking.
And I thought, Oh my God, I I'm genetically defective too. I'm like those people. And I realized I had stigmatized unconsciously my brain, people with mental health issues. I saw them as other than me. And it was a lot of humble pie. When it happened to me and I realized any one of us can be one of them.
And yeah,
Julie Michelson: Yeah, so so powerful. Um. And so we'll, we'll dig in a little, a little further. I want to kind of circle back to the medical anthropologist angle, because what you said, it sounds so [Page//00:06:00] obvious, right? And, and I'm going to repeat it and it's going to sound obvious again, that as you take an indigenous culture and you industrialize it, they end up where we are, right?
Same, same challenges.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. And that's when I realized is I actually had a former business partner, this beautiful man named Skye, really beautiful human. And he helped me find the words that were not living in alignment with our evolutionary biology. And that's what it was. That's what I was realizing. I wasn't sure how to put it into words at the time, but that's what it was.
And that's what I continue to say and teach is that we weren't living in alignment with our evolutionary biology. And there's something called co evolutionary relationships. That's just a fancy talk for the fact that all of existence evolved as one, it didn't evolve like this flower over there by itself and that tree over there by itself and that bug over there by itself and that human over there by itself.
No, and that those people on that continent and those people and then that tribe in that village. No. We are all one, everything, [Page//00:07:00] like we know this through unified field theory and physics, like we are one existence, and so everything has co evolved together. And so when you start doing things that don't work with the whole big, big picture of nature, with the brilliant genius intelligence of nature, then you get fallout.
That's when things fall apart. And I think a lot of us are led to believe that nature is so cruel and you know, geniuses make mistakes. Now, I always say nature's genius and we are nature and if we can tap into our inner genius, then we can heal from cell to soul. That's what I want people to understand.
But, you know, there are genetic mutations that cause problems, you know, like geniuses make mistakes, right? And that's part of evolution too. But overall, When, when you look at cultures, you know, like classic example, most of you have heard about like the Blue Zones project, like Okinawans or Sardinians, you look at people who lived a more traditional lifestyle, they got their nutritional needs met, they got, they lived with better circadian rhythms, well at least they did, it's one [Page//00:08:00] point, and you know, and they have their social and emotional needs met, you know, when they get their most basic human needs met, Not only do they have more centenarians, like they live longer, but they live better.
And there are people who are 103, 104, they're still having sex. They're squatting on the floor, standing up. They can climb upstairs. They're able bodied. They're not disabled like we are. We have the shortest disability free lifespan of any industrialized nation. We have the shortest lifespan of any industrialized nation.
And we have the most disease and mental illness. What is that? And we have so much money and technology. What is that telling us?
Julie Michelson: Right. Right. So, so how, here we are, Although
Traci Potterf: Zoom, which is awesome.
Julie Michelson: not, not that I would mind, you know, maybe living in Sardinia, but, but how do I, because I know, you know, again, we don't have these conversations, we want to shed light and not spread doom and gloom. And it's like, okay, well, we're here now we're in this sick, fat, tired, you know, you know, [Page//00:09:00] Nation and or wherever listeners are, you know, there isn't anywhere, even in the blue, even the blue zones are touched by all of this now.
Traci Potterf: right, they are
Julie Michelson: So, so what are the things we can focus on, you know, and, and maybe through that, we can also to highlight some of the, this autoimmunity podcast, right?
Traci Potterf: Well, this all goes back to everything's connected. Right? So to answer your further two points there. So I'll start with the first thing you said is what, what's the solution? Like, how can we be solutions oriented not doom and gloom? Well, one of the things we've got to stop talking about mental and physical illness is a war against or we're battling, like stop using war, destructive war, colonization, euphemisms, like we're going to overtake and overpower and conquer and whatever, you know, sometimes you do want to kill some parasites, sometimes you want to kill some things, but like overall, you know, We need to start [Page//00:10:00] shifting the way we think to start shifting the way we behave and feel.
And we've got to start creating a culture of nurture instead of a culture of war. We've got to start honoring ourselves as extensions of nature. We need to learn about the intelligence and genius of nature. And one of the super fun things about weaving together, how, how is our, if we connect anxiety and autoimmunity together, you're going to start to see connections that will start opening up your awareness.
To that intelligence of nature and the, the, it will point to the solutions like once you understand the underlying mechanisms and connections, then the solutions become obvious. So I'm not saying we have to go, you know, put on the loincloth and live in a cave or forest, although that could sound like fun, especially if your immune system could tolerate all the different critters and and things like that, but like.
But like, how can we live in our, you know, so called modern world or whatever, or I don't, I want to be careful with language because I don't want to say indigenous people aren't modern, they [Page//00:11:00] are, you know, but how can we live in our industrialized process world and start shifting the needle on how the culture we're co creating together because culture is something we're creating every moment with every, with the money we spend, with how we breathe, with how we think, with how we speak, with how we connect with each other, with the choices we make for ourselves and what we share with others.
We, we, we, we, culture is dynamic. It's not fixed. And so when we realized that when we make cultural shifts, we make biological shifts, and when we make biological shifts, we make cultural shifts, that it's all in a dance together. Then we realized we have more power than we thought telling someone like 19 year old little me.
Who was like, Oh my God, I must be just defective and it must be my genes. Cause you know, the truth was my dad had severe mental illness. He was a psychiatrist who was severely abused as a child, grew up in rural Kansas, closet gay, he would have been probably beat to death if he had come out, he even got arrested for being gay once, but he would never admit it.
But I mean, he had a, he had a record, you know, but he [Page//00:12:00] just. He, um, he went through a lot. He had severe unresolved trauma. And so, and even as a psychiatrist, he wouldn't talk about it or admit to it because there was so much shame. So we've got to stop it. And one of the things I want people to realize is that, and I'm going to like really pause before I say this, I want you to listen.
Anxiety is a natural response to an unnatural environment. Okay. We have normalized a toxic culture that tries to override nature instead of working with its intelligence. And one of the things I learned, it seems so cliche, but if you do look at so many indigenous cultures, they revered nature. They revered rocks and bugs and dirt, and they saw connections that we've, we miss now.
We don't see those connections. You know, we've learned other cool things, but we're missing these connections. And so one of my passions in life is to help weave together [Page//00:13:00] this tapestry, put that tapestry of nature back together in our consciousness so that we can move forward in our lives in ways that not only heal our illnesses, but create thriving, satisfying lives.
Julie Michelson: So beautiful. And, um, so for listeners that, and I see all the time in practice, you know, anxiety and chronic stress, it's all the same. It's on a spectrum, just like autoimmunity is It's on an inflammation spectrum, right? So you've got that early aging and decline you were talking about all the way to autoimmunity.
Same thing. We all are living with chronic stress and that can tip into anxiety. And some of it, as you mentioned is like tools, what tools, you know, your, your dad had a toolbox full of medication,
Traci Potterf: That's it. That's all
Julie Michelson: you have this beautiful expanse of, of tools that, that you help people [Page//00:14:00] with. Um, so how do we, in our industrialized modern processed worlds, how do you help people incorporate?
Cause I love, you know, it is a tapestry and there is no, it isn't, we're not going to go live in a cave. Like that's not realistic. It's not
Traci Potterf: some people, some people do. I actually literally met someone the other day who lived in a cave in the Mojave Desert, but yeah, most of us are not going to live in a cave.
Julie Michelson: And that. After time can create it's a, you know, then where's your social circle, where's your, you know,
Traci Potterf: exactly. Yeah. So here's the deal. So we don't have to reject the things that, that serve us. We just need to upgrade the things that don't to things that do and, um, so I can, would you like me to say kind of what my pillars, my toolboxes are first, or would you like me to talk about the connection between anxiety and autoimmunity first?
What do you think?
Julie Michelson: Let's do the connection first and then move into the toolbox.
Traci Potterf: Cause I think the connection points to the [Page//00:15:00] toolbox. So I think that's a good call Julie. Okay. So. One thing that's interesting, like, you know, I'm sure Julie's aware of this, practitioners are probably aware of this, but this is something that your average person, I remember the day I learned this.
Was that your vagus nerve, your vagus nerve, the longest nerve in your body, that's become very trendy to know about this now, which is such a cool trend. It's way more exciting than skinny jeans. So we're, we have this nerve that innervates like our internal organs, including a lot of our digestive tract.
And it's crucial, you know, for calming down our nervous system. But guess what it also does. It regulates cytokine storms. Well, cytokine storms are part of the immune system that we learned about during COVID
Julie Michelson: I was just going to say, nobody knew what those were
Traci Potterf: until COVID, right? So yeah, no one knew what cytokine storms were, but cytokine ramped up.
And [Page//00:16:00] that's what was killing people from COVID. They were dying because their own immune system was so ramped. that it killed them on accident. That wasn't the intention of the immune system, but they're nervous systems because of lifestyle and all these disease risks, but also just stress, anxiety, overwhelm of the modern world.
People's ability to regulate or modulate their immune systems for it to have a proper response was. Being dampened by the nervous system being overwrought. So, so what I want you to understand, that's just one example, it's so intricate. The way the immune system and the nervous system are physiologically the same structures.
Like they're overlapping in so many ways. They communicate, they're, the way our parts communicate with each other. I mean, just like as a quick overview, and I'll try not to rabbit hole this. But basically, there's your nerves, your nerves, your cranial nerves. One of which is the vagus nerve constantly talking between your brain and [Page//00:17:00] body, especially between with the vagus nerve.
We're kind of obsessed with that because it's talking. It's not only a calming, soothing nerve, but it's talking to play such an important role in how the gut talks to the brain. So we know if we have gut issues we have brain issues we know if our microbiome the microbes that make us up we're more microbial than human or at least as much microbial as human.
We're getting as much DNA information from our microbe cells as our human cells. We are. symbiotic creatures, right? And so these critters are excreting chemicals that are like signaling our nervous system. And there's a super highway through neurons, through chemical signaling, through these things called neuroendocrine cells that are like a cross between a hormone and a neurotransmitter.
I mean, we're like magic. Like the way our, our brains and our, and our internal organs and ourselves are all talking to each other. And so you cannot separate out an immune response from a nervous system response, because your nervous system is telling your immune system what to do all the time. The problem is, is that if you're in a constant state of overwhelm, if you're a constant state of [Page//00:18:00] hyper vigilance of stress now, and when, when I get to my pillars, my toolboxes, you're going to see that stress is so much bigger.
than what we think of it. It's not just work. It's not just the kids. It's not just your spouse. It's not just, you know, time management. Yes, all those things, but there's so much more to what stresses our bodies out. And, you know, so what I want people to understand is I think of autoimmunity as immunological PTSD.
So your immune system has been hammered and hammered and hammered and hammered, and it becomes so hyper vigilant, just like when a person has trauma, whether it's complex trauma from childhood, which more people have it than not, or single incidence trauma or single event trauma, it creates A hypervigilant nervous system where you're just, your nervous system wants so bad to protect you.
Your body is your most loyal, sweet protector and it wants to protect you so bad. And when we get, we get really scared like that, we get, we don't get our needs met. We're really pushed to [Page//00:19:00] our edge. Our nervous system becomes hypervigilant and it is looking for a threat. It's been, it's been taught. I'm not safe.
I'm not safe. So I've got to protect Julie. I've got to protect Traci. I've got to protect, it wants to protect you. So it becomes, it's just looking constantly for a threat. And then it becomes what we call dysregulated because it's overactive and then we're nervous, we're shaking, we're trembling, maybe we become depressed, we become anxious, and, but we also, because of the stress on the body and the impact of all these stress hormones, it starts affecting our physiology.
Stress triggers inflammation. Right. And so we become inflamed. Um, also stress makes our, our gastric juices not secrete as much. So it slows down our digestion and we don't absorb, you don't make enough hydrochloric acid in your stomach. You don't release enough pancreatic enzymes and bile in your small intestines.
Like it just goes on and
Julie Michelson: I always say you don't have to digest lunch if you don't outrun the tiger, right? Like
Traci Potterf: right.
Julie Michelson: our system [Page//00:20:00] isn't set up for that ongoing stress,
Traci Potterf: and you don't need a libido if you're going to get eaten
Julie Michelson: right. Or yeah,
Traci Potterf: And you don't really need to get, yeah, and you don't need to really kill infections or fight off, you know, like, really, you just need to, like, prepare for impact, you know, so we'll have inflammation in the joints, we'll have inflammation in the sore muscle, like, we'll get icky all over because our body's so inflamed, preparing for impact, but also your body thinks, but there could be famine.
You know, so it's
Julie Michelson: Hold on to that fat.
Traci Potterf: going to affect your metabolism. Yeah, hold on to that fat, right? So how do you stress out? How do you fatten up chickens naturally? Like, this is horrible, but like, you know, in factory farms, they'll put chickens like in a, you know, in under bright fluorescent lights all day and all night.
So they, their circadian rhythms don't work and it stresses them out so much that it makes them gain weight, which is like speaks
Julie Michelson: That's why we, that's why we say don't eat that. Um,
Traci Potterf: yeah. I mean, well, that's what we say. Like, watch your circadian, like watch your, you know, turn off the lights at night, get off your
Julie Michelson: But also don't, [Page//00:21:00] don't eat the factory
Traci Potterf: Oh, yeah. Don't need the factory
Julie Michelson: That's what I meant. Um, but, but
Traci Potterf: Yeah.
Julie Michelson: also I want to highlight because I, I just point out for listeners. So I know that there are. The majority of listeners are like, yeah, okay. You know, I feel that I get that.
I hear you. I understand like, oh, okay. These aren't two separate things. My anxiety and my auto immunity I'm one
Traci Potterf: I do?
Julie Michelson: but I do, I do encounter people that are so conditioned to be in chronic stress. They don't feel stressed out and they'll tell you I'm stressed.
Traci Potterf: I'm fine. Yeah.
Julie Michelson: Right. I'm like, well, you just told me about your life and now I'm stressed.
So I think we have some work to do.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. No, self awareness is a huge part of it. Yeah. Yeah. You're right.
Julie Michelson: you know, at your wit's end to, to have a stress load or an anxiety level that is impacting your
Traci Potterf: Absolutely. [Page//00:22:00] And that's why I want to like put a pin in, like, let's broaden our definition of stress. We need, we can't. We can't just say it's just this narrow, like I'm, I'm having panic attacks. And then if, if I'm not having panic attacks, I'm not stressed. Like, yeah, I'm fine. Yeah. And we, we do become habituated to things that are uncomfortable.
And one of my favorite things with clients is when people like things start resolving, they start feeling good. Like they didn't even realize how not good they felt like until they feeling good and they didn't realize, like, it's like people crying tears of joy and wonder and awe that they could feel so good after their whole lifetime of feeling the way they thought was normal and thought was fine, you know?
So that's a really legitimate point, and I did want to like, just finish up the autoimmunity thing. I'm almost done, but so one of the things I wanted to like, talk about what, like, so, so I was establishing how the nervous system and the, you know, the gut, you know, all that stuff is connected. We know the gut and the immune system are connected.
We know the gut and the brain are connected. Um, we talk about, I recommend, um. I listened to your interview with Myles [Page//00:23:00] Nichols. Um, so I'm going to skip over some details that he covered very nicely in, in that interview. So if you haven't, um, you know, after this interview, if you could go listen to the interview with Myles Nichols, or really all of them, they're great.
Um, that would be wonderful. Um, so anyway, but. We, he did talk about autoantibodies and we, when we talk about neuroinflammation, so one of the things I'm constantly educating people about is neuroinflammation, which is inflammation of the brain and nervous system. And so often when you have autoimmunity, your immune system again, is hypervigilant.
It has PTSD so it's looking for something to protect you from and so it gets confused and there's molecular mimicry where your body gets confused and it confuses certain molecule chain molecular patterning, and it thinks, oh, that's gluten. But no, that was your thyroid or it thinks, Oh, that's what it could be gluten again, or it could be dairy, or it could be another food.
It could be, it could be a pathogen. It could be lime. It could [Page//00:24:00] be mold. It could be, it could be anything. It could be a parasite. It could be bacteria, virus, your body can get fused, confused, and it'll accidentally attack brain tissue or heart tissue or in your autoimmune condition is just, it's all the same.
It's just, we're naming the condition based on the tissues it affects, but really on the same process, like whichever one showed up first, right? And it's so, you know, but because we eat so much wheat and gluten, our thyroids, often Hashimoto's becomes one of the first ones, but also our guts are so messed up.
So Crohn's is so, so rampant, but also a lot of people may not have full on Crohn's autoimmunity, but they have colitis, IBD, IBS, you know, so, so what's happening is the body is just, you know, you have your Allostatic load, like how much your body can handle. Like it's like a bucket of tolerance of how much stuff your body can sweep, body can handle before that bucket spills over and things start breaking down.
You can't, you know, you can't hold it all together. You can only, your body can only do so much. And so that's what I'm going to get to, like what we do about this. Right. But I just want you to [Page//00:25:00] understand that. You know, the reason your practitioners want to heal your gut to heal your autoimmunity, is it plays such a central role in the immune system, you know, and also one of the pieces of work that people want to skip right over is the nervous system, reconditioning the nervous system, rewiring.
I'll take my pills. I'll even change my diet. But stop and like work on, you know, focus on my thoughts and my beliefs and like take 15 minutes to meditate in the morning. Are you crazy? I can't meditate. I suck at meditation. So these are limiting beliefs that I, you know, you can get rid of very quickly.
They're not you. It's just conditioning. It's not who you are. So I just want people to understand that the same things that are causing your autoimmunity. Are causing your stress, overwhelming anxiety and even depression or any other mental or mood struggles, grumpiness, whatever. And I want you to understand that the very autoimmune condition, the autoantibodies are actually also [Page//00:26:00] triggering brain issues.
So I want people to understand that anxiety. It's how the brain says, ouch, ouch, right? So is depression. So is fatigue, brain fog. These are always, the brain says, ouch. And so, instead of thinking there's something wrong with me, because my brain is saying, ouch, would you say if you put your hand on a hot stove, and it hurt and your body told you, ouch, and told you to jerk it away, would you say, Oh, stupid body.
You stupid
Julie Michelson: Hold it there.
Traci Potterf: you. I'm going to
Julie Michelson: a baby.
Traci Potterf: I'm going to take some painkillers. I'm going to numb my hand so I can put it right back on the hot stove and it won't hurt. You don't do that, right? If your house is burning down and the smoke alarm goes off. Do you just take this bat, the battery out of the smoke alarm and say, okay, that should fix it.
No, your house will still burn down. So this, one of the things we need to learn is to feel. We're taught not to feel. We're taught to be [Page//00:27:00] all in our heads and not in our bodies. We're taught to, if we have to pee, ignore it. We're taught, we're thirsty, ignore it. We're hungry, ignore it. Statistically, men are a little bit better than women at like, you know, listening, you know, being like, I'm hungry.
I'm going to eat. I'm thirsty. I'm going to, you know, whatever. I'm going to take it up here on the sofa,
Julie Michelson: Maybe with their physical feelings, but not necessarily the emotional.
Traci Potterf: you're right. You're right. So in terms of bodily, like, urgent bodily needs.
Julie Michelson: all suck,
Traci Potterf: Yeah, we're all kind of could do a lot
Julie Michelson: but we all
Traci Potterf: and then emotion. Yeah, and then emotional needs.
Yeah, that's a whole other realm. I've actually talked to a lot of men about their struggles with like, not even knowing how to feel not to know what to do with their feelings or how to talk about it. So, and as a culture, we've also done a lot of disservice to men. Um, you know, the whole boys don't cry thing that used to be the old school way and telling, like the definition of strength is being numb and insensitive and aggressive and, and not feeling and not being vulnerable.
It takes so much bravery and strength to be vulnerable and
Julie Michelson: Absolutely.
Traci Potterf: to admit you're [Page//00:28:00] wrong and to like receive and not just, you know, whatever. And to tune into other people's feelings and needs. Those are super powers. Those are not weakness.
Julie Michelson: So I want to make sure that we, we touch and I know I, some of it has already come up, but, but the toolbox, the,
Traci Potterf: Yeah, I'm ready for it. I'm
Julie Michelson: right,
Traci Potterf: Okay, so now that we've established that that's all connected, um, hopefully it'll make sense now why you have to cover these three, I call them pillars or three toolboxes, you have to do all three of these, or you will not heal your anxiety, you will not heal your autoimmunity.
A lot of people, one of the reasons I got into like, um, functional mental health is I, when people would come to me with autoimmunity and gut issues is, you know, we would address those things and then their mental health issues would just disappear. Like, and I know you've experienced that too, Julie. My depression is gone.
My anxiety is gone. Like, you know, I was like, okay, let's catch people who don't know they have autoimmunity or they don't know they have Lyme. They don't know they have toxic mold. They don't know,
Julie Michelson: it or
Traci Potterf: like, yeah.
Julie Michelson: be
Traci Potterf: catch him a while. Let's let's get the [Page//00:29:00] pain of that smoke alarm and let's have them go in and like heal all of it right because really the same toolboxes work for both because it's all connected right so toolbox one.
And I want people to explore the hidden medical causes of anxiety. What is causing the neuro inflammation or in the case of autoimmunity what's causing this immune dysregulation. And so often, it is things like. You know, things that are invisible, like toxic mold that you just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there, especially if you live in a high humidity environment like Hawaii or Florida, or, you know, I live in Hawaii right now.
And so, um, and then there's, you know, like a lot of people have like tick borne infections or some form of line. And they don't want to find out if they have Mulder Lyme, because they have heard people have such a horrible time getting rid of it, or they think it ruins your life, so they don't want to know.
But the thing is, there are solutions. If you get the right help, you can get over it. Like, it's better to know and treat it than to [Page//00:30:00] like, be like, la la la, I don't want to know. And by the way, I've done that myself, even for what I do for a living. I put off finding out some stuff about my body that like, if I had known sooner, it would have saved me six figures of money and like, like years of pain and suffering.
So I'm really big on that.
Julie Michelson: well, we're all human
Traci Potterf: were all human, we're all human. So, you know, you could have, you know, thyroid disease. You could have, you know,
Julie Michelson: things we're testing
Traci Potterf: Yeah. So hidden these hidden medical causes. So toolbox one. Functional practitioner, hidden medical causes, things that are causing ouch in your digestive system, ouch in your cells, ouch in your brain, so neuro, sources of neuroinflammation and immune system dysregulation.
So that's box one. So that's the, go to the, go to the practitioner, run the tests, take the supplements. Okay. A lot of people seem okay with that part. Okay, now moving right along. The second toolbox is your lifestyle. In your lifestyle, yes, we hear diet and exercise. It's become so cliche, we're almost numb to it.
Um, what if we hear it as [Page//00:31:00] self nurture, as nourishment and movement and play, as relationships, as your daily thoughts and actions? Just the thoughts in our heads are one of the hugest parts of our lifestyles, and we don't think of that as lifestyle. Um, our physical environment, do you have mold in your house, you know, or, you know, whatever, are you exposed to some kind of fumes or toxic chemicals at work?
Like, you know what, you know, so your environment, your physical environment, but also your social emotional environment, your relationships with other humans, you know, these are, or even if you have connections with other humans or are you alienated, right? So this is all lifestyle. And the thing is, I don't like the word diet.
I use it, but I don't love it. Because it's, I like nurture, I like nourishment, I like yummy, I like food, I like, you know, people have grown to be ashamed, well I love food, like it's a bad thing, yes, you have an evolutionary wiring to love food, otherwise you would flourish, this is a good thing. You know, you're supposed to want pleasure, we are wired for [Page//00:32:00] pleasure.
So I made up this term that I teach people called healthy hedonism. So hedonism is the pursuit of pleasure of wanting to feel good. Guess what? That's normal. You should do that. I encourage it. Here's the deal. Are your sources of pleasure destroying you? Or are they uplifting you? Hugs. Uplift you. Alcohol.
It's a poison. I'm not saying you can never drink any. But let's not lie to ourselves.
Julie Michelson: be, yeah, beware me.
Traci Potterf: yeah, be aware, you know, like, you know, caffeine, I hate to say it is a neurotoxin. And one of the primary causes of anxiety, I have clients who will just we you have to wean off caffeine, you cannot quit cold turkey, I have clients, they wean off caffeine, and they suddenly they have more not less energy once they get over the hump.
And their anxiety goes from an eight to a four or to a two or to zero. You know, so it's amazing how many things we do that we think, oh, this will give me energy. No! Caffeine is like living off a credit card. You're stealing from your future self. You're [Page//00:33:00] running yourself into the ground. You need to create true cellular energy through rest, through nutrition, through hugs, through relationships, through love, through support.
So, like, it's so important. To become the artist of your life and you know, to craft your thoughts, to craft your daily habits and routines and make them things you enjoy that lift you up. Because if you fall in love with your life, you don't need willpower. And when you give your body the things that needs to thrive, it feels so good.
You get this natural high, but it makes alcohol seem like a downer. It makes like sugar seem like a downer. It makes. Caffeine seem like a downer. It makes codependent relationships seem like a downer. It seems like rushing to get through your checklist a downer. Like suddenly you are at home in your soul.
You're so rooted in the essence of what you are. You're back in your core, like you're back in balance and you're so in this beautiful alignment and things in your life start, you start experiencing more synchronicity [Page//00:34:00] and life starts to feel like magic and like things in your external world start shifting.
Your relationships start getting better. There is no end. to this. And there's research showing that people with autoimmunity, also with cancer, are personalities who tend to put themselves last, who tend to be like, you are so great. You can depend on this person for everything. This person, even when they were battling with Crohn's disease or cancer.
They kept going and volunteering and they kept getting involved in all these things and they kept serving their spouse and they kept, you know, and like, yeah. And then that's their obituary. And someone who has brought this to public light is Gabor Mate. He talks openly about, he has, he has great like YouTube videos and all kinds of things talking where he reads obituaries of people who died of conditions because they didn't take care of themselves.
And dying a martyr is not the way to use the gift of a life. [Page//00:35:00] And I'm thinking of my mother who had Crohn's disease. I got into functional medicine because they wanted to remove her colon, give her a colostomy, a permanent colectomy and her to have a colostomy bag the rest of her life. And I was like, I'm not, no, no, my mom cannot lose her colon.
She cannot never use her anus again. This is not okay. You know, and that's how I got into functional medicine. It wasn't, I didn't start out with an anxiety focus. I started out like saving my mom's life and we, by just changing her lifestyle, there were just a couple of supplements she used, but all with lifestyle and emotional work.
She got into, she was, became quiescent, which is like what you say for remission from autoimmunity in 2004. She's 83. She's never had a relapse since, and she has not been on any immunosuppressant drugs or drugs for, for any of this. And yet doctors, if she has anything happen, like she got SIBO and, and they were like, Oh, it must be colitis or Crohn's or they wanted to put her in a, and I was like, no, can we do a SIBO breath test?
And her SIBO levels were through the roof. She'd gotten food poisoning and it [Page//00:36:00] turned to SIBO. And they didn't want to test for that because they were like, well, you're a Crohn's patient to hammer. Everything looks like
Julie Michelson: Yeah, absolutely.
Traci Potterf: So yeah.
Julie Michelson: And
Traci Potterf: And then the third,
Julie Michelson: pillar,
Traci Potterf: and then the third pillar. So like a lifestyle you're in love with hidden medical causes.
And then the third pillar is. rewiring your nervous system. Isn't it magical? We have neuroplasticity. We used to think a nerve neuron died. It couldn't regenerate. We used to think that's just how you are. No, we are plastic elastic. We are neuroplastic, elastic. We are formable creatures. We are programming ourselves daily society, and external stimulus is programming us daily.
The cool thing is we can reprogram and rewire. There are more and more people speaking up, you know, from the science space into the public space. Someone you guys have probably heard of is Andrew Huberman from Stanford, Stanford neuroscientists. He's really [Page//00:37:00] putting it out there that look at all these things you can do to rewire your brain.
This information has been around for a long time. These practices he talks about have been around forever.
Julie Michelson: the ancient practices is the new science.
Traci Potterf: yes, yes, exactly.
Julie Michelson: I love it because some people really need to see the science or know their science before they'll just take that leap.
Traci Potterf: It helps me. It motivates me. When you learn, when you know, for example, he talks about the physiological side, right? This is not a new thing. This is something primal. This is the genius of nature. The genius of nature has you naturally when you're sleeping, when you're upset, when you're crying, whether you're a baby or an adult, where you, you inhale, you inhale and you exhale.
So you're like, you know,
Julie Michelson: of any infants or toddler who's been crying and they're settling back down, [Page//00:38:00] like they all do it.
Traci Potterf: Yeah, it's nature. You'll do it. You have a big cry and don't you hold in your cries, people. You got to cry. You got to let it out. Don't hold in a cry. Okay. And we have a culture where we cover our face and apologize when we cry. Why? Do you do that when you laugh?
Julie Michelson: Conditioning.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. I mean,
Julie Michelson: sometimes, cause I've been known to laugh inappropriately.
That's definitely happened,
Traci Potterf: yeah,
Julie Michelson: but that's okay. Self
Traci Potterf: such a natural. Yeah, crying is such a natural release. It's like burping or farting or going to the bathroom or peeing or like you sweating. You know, sneezing. Like it's how your body releases.
Julie Michelson: cleanse. It's a, yeah,
Traci Potterf: It's a beautiful thing and people imagine because our minds feel so like real and so strong and it feels like to change my thoughts.
It's going to take like it's going to be like trying to pick up the Empire State Building with my [Page//00:39:00] with my pinky finger or something like that, you know, we think it's like this huge thing, but but Neuroscience is showing in like, there are different breath work, whether it's the physiological side, there's a, uh, a practice called pendulation that I have a, I have a recorded, I have a guided meditation on the homepage of my website that teaches you to do this.
It teaches you embodiment. It gets you to feel your body, which we all need to do more of all of us. Um, it, it helps you sleep. It helps down regulate pain. It actually helps stop pain, helps calm anxiety, overwhelm, stress tension. It's I start out all my sessions with my clients. I, we, not every session, but the first kickoff session, we do this at the beginning and people are just blown away at how calm, like in blissful they feel you have, you have the ability to create bliss.
And I'm not saying you can't have healthy desserts because you can't and I'm not saying you can't have any food and I'm not saying you can never have a glass of wine. I'm just saying the pleasure you can [Page//00:40:00] create internally with your own internal pharmacy through breathing, through how you focus your attention, through how you move your body is incredible.
It is, you can get downright euphoric. And what's also cool about it is when you get in these brain states, you make different choices. You get solutions to problems that have been eating at you for years. You see things from in new ways you never could have forced through your intellect. You tap into your wisdom brain.
You become genius. That's your inner genius. That's part of it. You have inner genius, the healing power of your cells, of your DNA, of your microbes, epigenetics, neuroplasticity. Like we have the ability. And just. You can, you can, you know, the physiological side, you know, I'm trying to remember the name of the scientist.
Is it at UC Irvine? Oh, where is it? Yours at UCLA. I can't remember. I don't know if you know, but anyway, one of the guys who's doing the big research on the physiological side, they're finding that doing it five minutes a day, that's about 30 [Page//00:41:00] breaths, five minutes a day is changing people's brain structures within a matter of weeks, like six weeks.
Imagine six months, what it will do to your brain. That's five minutes a day, right?
Julie Michelson: Well, and that's so important for people. I think that is you, you hit on that resistance of, you know, I've had these thought patterns for decades. It's going to take decades to shift it. And that's not true. Even something as simple as writing three gratitudes a day, how quickly you can start shifting.
Traci Potterf: Right. Why? Why is gratitude all the rage? Because
Julie Michelson: So powerful.
Traci Potterf: Because we have a negativity bias. Again, hypervigilance. Something's wrong. I'm not good enough. This isn't it. Something's wrong. I'm not good enough. This isn't it. I got those three things from my friend Sage. He was one of my first, the first people that introduced me to meditation and open eye meditation and all these magical, my magical inner world.
And, and, and that's what the default, you know, of the negativity bias it's, it's to make us [Page//00:42:00] survive. But it, we can't thrive when we're like that. So by just appreciating, you know, like, you know, just being like appreciating things like, especially after I lived in Cuba, I really got good at appreciating electricity and toilet paper and like, you know, all kinds of things, you know, being able to say my opinion out loud without getting thrown in jail and like, you know, whatever.
So like, just, um, there are so many things that are surrounding us constantly that we almost take for granted, like here I have like this lovely, you know, like I have a sweet potato, and it's like, it's orange and bright and beautiful inside I have like all this access to food like I mean there's so much to have this beautiful plant behind me and I have a beautiful home and I have beautiful friends and yeah, do I have problems and challenges and struggles?
Yeah, absolutely. But, but appreciation is so just making a habit of it. As much as we are inclined to complain, if we could like, if we could just appreciate a fraction of what we complain, amazing. Sometimes we gotta vent. Sometimes [Page//00:43:00] you gotta get it out. So,
Julie Michelson: Well, and I always try to clarify having a gratitude practice. doesn't mean you weren't already a grateful person. It's just what you're saying is shifting that focus to the positive. And then what, then you're experiencing everything through that lens and who doesn't want that?
Traci Potterf: Exactly.
Julie Michelson: from all of the healing properties, it happens to also feel good.
Traci Potterf: Right. And you just said, you just said something that is gold, which is like, if we do the things, this has a caveat. If we do the things that make us feel good, we will actually heal our illnesses. And if we do the things that heal our illnesses, it will make us feel good. There's no separation there. Now, caveat heroin.
Julie Michelson: Long term.
Traci Potterf: never done it. I've never, yeah, I've never done heroin.
Julie Michelson: either.
Traci Potterf: But I hear it feels really good. You know, um, you know, there are things that feel [Page//00:44:00] good in the moment, but they hurt us in the long run. And unfortunately, yeah, yeah, we have, we have, we have a culture that has fetishized destructive pleasures.
Alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, yeah, like simple carbohydrates, definitely like gluten, um, you know, like
Julie Michelson: not talking about that. We're talking about, you know, and you, you touched on it earlier as well. The, this idea of, you know, as we start to nourish our body and, and positively, you know, it, it becomes its own fuel.
Traci Potterf: right. I like how you
Julie Michelson: the healing. Right. It
Traci Potterf: I love that. Yeah. Perfectly said. And you know, the thing is, is I teach people, you know, through my healthy hedonism approach to broaden your pleasure palette. If you're painting and you only have black and white, you're not going to make a very pretty rainbow. And then someone says, well, you can't paint black and white anymore.
You're like, oh crap. [Page//00:45:00] I can never paint a rainbow. Well, you weren't even painting a rainbow to begin with. So when, when you have all the colors and you can mix and match them and all these beautiful creative ways, then your life comes into full color. And so. You have to like really start focusing on what are things that feel good that uplift me.
Because instead of these, I call them cheap thrills, things that make you feel good now, but then the future self, I want you guys to anthropomorphize your future self, future Traci, future Julie, future, whatever your name is, look out for your future self and thank your past self. When you do something nice, like you made yourself leftovers at dinner.
So it's lunchtime and now you have this really amazing lunch. Thank your past self. When I go on a trip, I make extra food and put it in the freezer. So when I get back, I have like food already. And I think past Traci, cause that was really nice of her to do that for me.
Julie Michelson: And
Traci Potterf: that what. Yeah, whatever choices you're making, and not to make this a heavy thing.
I like to make it fun and playful, but you just, like, whatever your mundane day to day choices are, how you're breathing, how you're thinking, how you're eating, [Page//00:46:00] if you go to bed, if you went to bed early enough and got enough sleep, that's going to affect tomorrow you, and today you is living with the consequences of yesterday you, and you from months and years ago.
So, like, if
Julie Michelson: And that's where the power is. That's how we get to change.
Traci Potterf: Right. So if you can look out, first, understand that anything that feels resistant to change, it's literally just a thought. It's not a biological reality. It's just a habit of thinking, and it can be changed. And all you have to do is repeat is like, it's called cognitive reframing.
You just change the thought and you look for evidence that it's true until you're convinced it's your new reality. And it takes. days to weeks, sometimes two days a day, you know, it depends on what the thing is and how deep it is, but we can change a lot in just weeks. We can like, like I do three month programs and people in three months are like, whoa, that's not very much time.
A lot of
Julie Michelson: it's powerful.
Traci Potterf: people want things tomorrow, like, you know, I said, you have to heal at the [Page//00:47:00] speed of life, not at the speed of amazon. com, right? So, so like, you know, give your give yourself time. You took time to get here. You need time to get out to heal any major illness. Give yourself a year. Give yourself 3 years.
I don't know, but like, within 3 months, you can
Julie Michelson: going to feel.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. You'll feel changes all along the way.
Julie Michelson: that is the perfect segue into what is Dr. Traci's one step that listeners can take. This is always such a hard one, but starting today, we covered a lot of things and we know there are many ways to things that will move the needle, but what's one step listeners can take starting today.
Traci Potterf: I'm so glad you asked. It goes back to paying attention to how we feel, but we have a culture that teaches us to be full steam ahead, not feeling. That's why I think having a practice every morning and that you can do it at night too, but it's most powerful research shows it's most powerful, makes the most brain changes in the most life impact.[Page//00:48:00]
First thing in the morning, pee, drink water, do your thing, let your pet out to go to the bathroom, whatever. But as soon as you can, after you wake up, I want you to sit down. It would be nice if you had your feet on the earth and, you know, could get outdoors a little bit, you know, even in your house, I want you to sit down, close your eyes and breathe and feel.
Now you can try the pendulation meditation on my website, innergenioushealth. com. Um, and it will teach you a very specific technique to, it's a kind of somatic meditation to get into your body. And to connect to your breath. And it's going to be so structured that it doesn't matter if you have a giant monkey mind or if you're agitated or whatever, it's okay.
It's fine. It doesn't matter any way you are to show up how you are and do it. And if you can just give yourself even 15 minutes a day. Yeah, if you do an hour long meditation, that's wonderful. That's wonderful, too. But if you can just give yourself 15 minutes a day, even five to start your day coming into yourself, breathing and [Page//00:49:00] feeling.
You'll notice how you feel throughout the day, you'll take, you'll make different decisions, you'll see the world differently, making changes and the rest of your health will suddenly start feeling doable, you will start to feel empowered. So if you start with the inside. This is the part the work that people tend to want to avoid the most, and the part that gives you the fastest results.
And it has a domino effect into every other area because then you will figure out if you don't have a practitioner that's working for you, you will find your way. I promise it'll just like, it'll, you'll be led to the right practitioner. You'll be led to the right answers that things will intuitively come to you that you couldn't see before.
So the magic of meditation, the magic of breathing and feeling. Meditation isn't erasing your thoughts and clearing your mind. Like, that's a myth. Your thoughts will stop when you're brain dead. Like, otherwise,
Julie Michelson: Yeah.
Traci Potterf: if your thoughts. It's okay. You're just focusing on breathing and feeling. It's so simple. We make it out to be this very [Page//00:50:00] complicated thing.
You know, just stop and breathe and feel. If you have some structured something to listen to until you really master it, that's great. If you've already mastered it, just make time for it. And then everything else will start to fall into place.
Julie Michelson: Amazing. And before we wrap up for people listening on the go, where's the best place to find you?
Traci Potterf: Inner genius health.com so that some people think I'm saying energy, I'm saying inner like
Julie Michelson: inner. Yes.
Traci Potterf: genius. So I N N E R G E N I u s health.com. So that's the, the genius of nature that is inside you, your inner genius. So inner genius health.com. And then I'm also on Instagram, Dr. Traci Potter of PhD.
I'm on Facebook and I have a YouTube channel.
Julie Michelson: Amazing.
Traci Potterf: If you look up my name, you'll find me because it's spelled so weird. I'm the only person in the whole internet with my name. So if
Julie Michelson: Potter plus an F.
Traci Potterf: yeah. Like Traci [Page//00:51:00] my Potter with enough, you'll find me.
Julie Michelson: Traci, thank you so much. You have given us amazing gold today and given listeners so many things that they can just take and run with. I really appreciate it.
Traci Potterf: Yeah. You're welcome. Just, I want people to know you can heal the anxiety and the auto immunity together at the same time. You can. I don't care what's happening your whole life. I don't care what runs in the family. You can resolve this both. You don't have to live with managing it. Like you can really resolve this.
Julie Michelson: Love it. Thank you. For everyone listening. Remember you can get the transcripts and show notes by visiting inspiredliving.show. I hope you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did. See you next week. [Page//00:52:00]
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Traci Potterf
Dr. Traci Potterf, PhD, is a Functional Health anxiety detective and founder of InnerGeniusHealth.com. As a practitioner, speaker and writer, she helps growth minded professionals overwhelmed by anxiety to find and fix the hidden causes with natural solutions so they can live a limitless life at peace in their own skin. Anxiety and autoimmunity often go hand in hand. Supporting people who struggle with autoimmunity has been near and dear to her heart since 2004 when she helped her mom overcome Crohn's diseas withoutever relapsing, losing her colon or having to stay on meds (which doctors said was impossible). Dr. Traci received her PhD from UC Berkeley where she participated in a joint program with UCSF Medical School as a Javits fellow. Having lived through the lense of being a psychiatrist’s daughter, former medical anthropologist and recovered debilitating anxiety sufferer, she sees a unique way out of the mental health epidemic that she’s on a mission to share with the world.
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